Hunters who have climbed up and become situated in a tree stand have a need for a means of lifting various objects upward for use or consumption in the tree stand, in particular hunting rifles, ammunition and various other useful items. A similar need arises for lowering objects back to the ground. The most commonly used approach for lifting up of objects to the level of a tree stand is to tie the object to one end of a pull rope and pull the rope upward until the object comes within the grasp of the occupant. This approach has disadvantages is that the rope tends to become tangled as it accumulates at the tree stand level, and stopping movement of the pulled object requires tying knots is the rope and removing them afterwards. Another problem that arises is that the pull rope is not permanently connected to the tree stand and may be forgotten or lost when needed. It would be desirable to provide a lifting system in which a pulling rope or cord is automatically kept under control of the user and which includes a braking feature allowing the load to held at any location and easily released.